How to quickly make a Mac OS X bootable USB on Windows. Mauro Huculak @pureinfotech. April 11, 2018. Use the Restore Disk Image to Drive dialog box to browse for the DMG file with the installation files for Mac OS X Yosemite in this case. Windows 10 version 1809 download using ‘Update Assistant’. Download Windows 10 Disc Image. First, you need to download the Windows 10 ISO file. Go to the download page and select the proper edition of Windows 10 in the dropdown menu. How to install Windows 10 on your Mac using Boot Camp How do I use Windows 10 on a Mac? What you'll need before you install Windows 10 on your Mac. Before starting anything else, be sure you have a Mac that supports Windows 10. How to back up your Mac. How to download the Windows 10 ISO file.
Editors' note: This post was updated on August 12, 2015, with information on how to remove Windows from a dual-boot Mac.
If you haven't already heard, Windows 10 is pretty great and worth installing on your PC. Apple fans won't miss out either, since the new operating system can be installed on your Mac as well.
To install Windows 10 on a Mac, you will need the following:
Note that you won't need a Windows 10 license for the installation, but you will need to buy one if you want to continue to use it on your Mac after the 30-day trial period.
Following these instructions will install Windows 10 on your Mac in a dual-boot configuration, meaning you'll have the option to choose which operating system (Windows 10 or Mac OS) to use each time you turn on the computer. And, if you later on change your mind, the guide also includes the information on how you can remove Windows afterwords.
This guide is for a Mac that doesn't have already have Windows installed. If yours already has Windows 7 or Windows 8 on your Mac, you can upgrade it to Windows 10 the normal way.
Step 1: Insert the flash drive into your Windows computer and download Windows 10's media creation tool from Microsoft. There are 32-bit and 64-bit versions, depending on which Windows system you intend to use the tool on. If you're not sure whether your computer is using 64-bit or 32-bit Windows, here's how you can find out. Only the version compatible with your system will actually run.
Step 2: Open the downloaded media creation tool, choose Create installation media for another PC then click Next.
Step 3: Select the Language, Edition and the 64-bitArchitecture for Windows 10, then click Next. It's important that you select the 64-bit Architecture, unless your Mac specifically supports only the 32-bit architecture (very few do). If you select the 32-bit or both option, you may run into problems later on.
As for what edition of Windows to get, check out this chart to find out if Pro or Home fits you best. Keep in mind that you will need to buy a license later when you need to activate Windows and the Pro edition is more expensive than the Home edition. The N edition of Windows 10 is for certain European markets.
Step 4: Choose to save Windows 10 installer as an ISO file then click on Next. Don't worry, you won't need a DVD burner or a DVD at all.
Note that you'll want to avoid using the USB flash drive option here since, in my experience, the Windows 10 USB installer drive created using Windows has trouble working on certain Macs.
Step 5: Choose a location to save the Windows ISO file. For this guide, I chose to save that file on the flash drive, but you can save it anywhere on the computer and then copy it onto the flash drive later.
Depending on your Internet connection, this will take between a few minutes and several hours. Once the file has been saved on the flash drive, remove it from your Windows computer and insert it into your Mac.
You will not need the Windows computer again for the rest of the process.
Note: At times you'll be prompted to type in the password for your Mac's admin account. Make sure you have that ready.
Step 1: Insert and then open the flash drive. Copy the Windows ISO file onto the Mac's desktop. Leave the flash drive connected to the Mac for the rest of job. Make sure there are no other flash drives or external hard drives connected to the Mac.
Step 2: Run Boot Camp Assistant, then click on Continue. Boot Camp Assistant is located in ApplicationsUtilities folder. You can also quickly search for it using Spotlight.
Step 3: Make sure all three tasks Create a Windows 7 or later version install disk, Download the latest Windows support software from Apple and Install windows 7 or later version are checked. Then click Continue.
Step 4: If you've copied the Windows ISO file to the Mac's desktop, it will be automatically located. If you put it elsewhere on the computer, you'll need click on Choose and browse for it. The flash drive will be automatically chosen as the install disk if it's the only flash drive plugged in.
Verify everything then click on Continue. Boot Camp Assistant will then confirm the erasing of the flash drive before turning it into a Windows 10 install disk (make sure you have no important information on the flash drive.) After that it will also download the latest Windows support software onto the flash drive.
Eclipse downloads windows 7 64 bit. Step 5: Boot Camp Assistant will prompt you to choose the size of the partition that you'll use for Windows. Use the slider to select the size. Windows 10 itself requires at least 20GB to install, so you'll want more than that to make room for software and data. Note that this is the only time you can pick the partition size for Windows so make sure you make up your mind before continue.
Once done, without removing the flash drive, click on Install. The partitioning will takes place and then the Mac will restart. This is the end of part 2. Make sure the flash drive remained plugged in for the entire part 3.
Step 1: The Mac will automatically boot up from the flash drive and start the Windows Setup process. You'll be prompted to choose the Language, Time and currency format, and Keyboard settings for Windows. Do this, then click on Next.
Note: If somehow the Mac doesn't boot from the flash drive, just restart it, hold down the Option key after the Apple startup sound for available boot options, use the left/right keys to pick the flash drive -- which will likely appears as 'Windows' -- and press Enter to boot from it.
Step 2: Enter the Windows 10 product key if you have it, then click on Next, or click on Skip. The installation process will then ask you to confirm the Windows edition you want to install, and ask you to agree to the terms and conditions.
Step 3: Eventually, you will be presented with the all existing partitions, one of which is marked as BOOTCAMP. This is the partition you want to install Windows 10 on. Select it then click on Format. Do not do anything about the rest of the partitions.
Step 4: Windows Setup will then ask you to confirm, click on OK and then click on Next.
Step 5: Windows Setup will continue the rest of the setup process by itself. This should take about about 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the speed of your Mac. After that, the Mac will start up with Windows 10. You will be asked to go through with the normal steps of setting up a new Windows computer, including creating an user account.
Step 6: As you log in for the first time, you will be greeted with this Boot Camp installation message. Click on Next and follow the rest of the installation, reboot the computer, and you're done!
If you don't see this message, open the flash drive, and double-click on the Setup file inside the BootCamp folder. Once Boot Camp is done installing, you can remove the flash drive from the computer. It's no longer needed.
While you have both Mac OS and Windows 10 on the same machine, you can only run one of them at a time. To manually select which operating system to run, during the startup, hold down the Option key after the Apple startup sound and then use the left and right keys to select which one you want to boot into, then press Enter. To set which operating system to boot up as default, use the Boot Camp control panel (Windows) or Startup Disk in System Preferences (Mac).
If for some reason, you don't want to have Windows 10 (or any version of Windows for that matter) on your Mac anymore, you can permanently remove it and regain the disk space the Mac OS. Here are the steps.
1. Boot into Mac OS, run Boot Camp Assistant and click Continue.
2. Pick the third option that reads Remove Windows 7 or later version then click on Continue.
3. In this step, just click on Restore; you will be prompted for the Mac's admin password to confirm. After a short process, Windows will be removed like it had never been installed. Note that removing Windows also means that all data, including software and files, stored on the Windows partition will be permanently erased.
Whether you want to occasionally test a website in Safari, or try out a little bit of software in the Mac environment, having access to the latest version of macOS in a virtual machine is useful. Unfortunately, you’re not really supposed to do this—so getting macOS running in VirtualBox is, to say the least, tricky.
It’s not impossible, however. Some of the folks at the InsanelyMac forums have figured out a process that works. The only thing not working is sound, which for some reason is highly distorted or nonexistent. Other than that, though, this is macOS High Sierra, running smoothly in VirtualBox.
However I had purchased some packages and then got a new computer. Microsoft paint download for mac. Again I'm a novice, but I like the fact I can use different kinds of brushes with what seems to be wet paint upon application! Never crashes my computer. Oh and it is free.
To make things a little easier for people, we’ve combined methods from a few different forum threads into a single, step-by-step tutorial, complete with screenshots. Let’s dive in.
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NOTE: In order to get this working, you will need access to a real Mac in order to download High Sierra. You could, we suppose, obtain a High Sierra ISO by other means, but we don’t recommend it. Borrow a friend’s Mac for an hour if you don’t have one, and you should be fine—everything beyond step one of this tutorial can be done on your Windows PC.
If you’re on a Mac and want a macOS virtual machine for use on that Mac, we recommend checking out out Parallels Desktop Lite instead, because it can create macOS virtual machines for free and is a lot easier to work with.
Ready to get started? Let’s jump in!
To start, we’ll need to create an ISO file of macOS High Sierra’s installer, so we can load it in VirtualBox on our Windows machine. Grab your borrowed Mac, head to the Mac App Store, search for Sierra, and click “Download.”
When the process is done, the installer will launch—that’s okay, just close it with Command+Q. We don’t want to upgrade your friend’s Mac; we just need the downloaded files.
To convert those files to an ISO, we’ll need to use the Terminal, which you can find in Applications > Utilities.
First, run the following command to create a blank disk image:
Next, mount your blank image:
Now you’re going to restore BaseSystem.dmg from the installer over to the newly mounted image:
Note that, after doing this, the name of our destination mount point has changed to “OS X Base System/System.” You’re almost done! Unmount the image:
And, finally, convert the image you created into an ISO file:
Move the ISO to the desktop:
And you’ve got a bootable High Sierra ISO file!
Copy it to your Windows machine using a large flash drive, an external hard drive, or over your local network.
Next, head to your Windows machine, and install VirtualBox if you haven’t already, making sure you have the latest version (seriously, older versions may not work.)
Open it up and click the “New” button. Name your Virtual Machine “High Sierra,” and choose “Mac OS X” for the operating system and “Mac OS X (64-bit)” for the version (as of this writing, “macOS High Sierra” is not offered, but that’s fine.)
Continue through the process. For memory, we recommend you use at least 4096MB, though you can opt for more if you have enough RAM to spare on your Windows machine.
Next, you’ll be asked about your hard drive. Choose “Create a Virtual Hard Disk Now” and click Create.
Choose VDI for hard disk type and click Next. You’ll be asked if you want a dynamically sized drive or fixed. We recommend Fixed Size, since it’s a bit faster, though it’ll take up a bit more hard drive space on your Windows machine.
Click Next. You’ll be asked how big a drive you want; we recommend at least 25GB, which is big enough for the OS and a few applications. Depending on your storage situation, you could offer more, but we don’t think you can really use much less than that.
Click through the prompts, and you’ve created an entry for your virtual machine! Now it’s time to do a little configuration.
You should see your virtual machine in VirtualBox’s main window.
Select it, then click the big yellow “Settings” button. First, head to “System” in the left sidebar. On the Motherboard tab, make sure that “Floppy” is unchecked.
Next head to the “Processor” tab, and make sure you have at least two CPUs allocated to the virtual machine.
Next, click “Display” in the left sidebar, and make sure Video Memory is set to at least 128MB.
Next, click “Storage” in the left sidebar, then click the “Empty” CD drive. Click the CD icon at the top right, then browse to the High Sierra ISO file you created earlier.
Be sure to click “OK” to finalize all the changes you’ve made, then close VirtualBox. No, seriously: close VirtualBox now, or the next steps won’t work.
We’ve made a few tweaks, but we need to make a few more more in order to convince the operating system it’s running on a real Mac. Sadly, there are no options for this from VirtualBox’s interface, so you’ll need to open the Command Prompt.
Open the Start Menu, search for “Command Prompt,” then right-click it and select “Run as administrator.”
You need to run a number commands, in order. Paste the following commands, pressing Enter after each one and waiting for it to complete:
That’s it! If everything worked, you shouldn’t see any feedback; the commands will simply run. If the command did not work, make sure your virtual machine is named “High Sierra” exactly; if it isn’t, edit the commands above putting your machine’s name in the quotes. Go ahead and close the Command Prompt. We’re heading back to VirtualBox now.
Re-open VirtualBox, click your Sierra machine, then click “Start.” Your machine will start to boot. You will see a lot of superfluous information as this happens—and I mean a lot—but don’t worry about it. It’s normal, even some of the things that look like errors.
You should only worry if a specific error hangs for five minutes or more. Just walk away and let it run for a bit. If you’ve done everything right, it’ll boot.
Eventually, you’ll see the installer asking you to pick a language:
Pick “English,” or whatever language you prefer, then click “Next.” Before you do anything else, however, click “Disk Utility” then “Continue.”
You won’t see the drive: don’t panic, High Sierra hides blank drives by default. In the menu bar, click “View” followed by “Show All Devices.”
You should now see your empty virtual drive in the sidebar. Click it, then click the “Erase” option.
Name the drive “Macintosh HD,” and leave the other two settings as-is: “Mac OS Extended Journaled” and “GUID Partition Map”. Do not create an AFS partition, because it will not work and you’ll have to start over with a new virtual hard drive. Click “Erase,” then close Disk Utility when the process is complete. You’ll be brought back to the main window.
Select “Reinstall macOS” then click “Continue.” You’ll be asked to agree with the terms.
Agree and you’ll eventually be asked to choose a hard drive; select the partition you just made.
The installation will begin! This might take a while, so be patient. Eventually your virtual machine will restart and take you…back to the installer. Don’t panic: this is to be expected.
At this point the installer has copied files onto the virtual hard drive, and expects to boot from there. For whatever reason this does not work on the virtual machine, which is why you’re seeing the installer again.
Turn off your virtual machine and open its settings. Head to Storage, click “HighSierra.iso” in the “Storage Tree” panel, then click the CD icon at top-right and click “Remove Disk from Virtual Drive.” This will completely disconnect our installation ISO.
Now start up the virtual machine and you’ll see this lovely screen.
This is the EFI Internal Shell, and as long as you see “FS1” listed in yellow, you can use it to launch the rest of the installer. Click the virtual machine and allow it to capture you mouse and keyboard, then type fs1:
and hit Enter. This will switch directories to FS1, where the rest of the installer is located.
Next we’re going to run a few commands in order to switch to the directory we need:
Now we can run the installer itself with the following command:
The installer will pick up where it left off. First you’ll see a series of text, like before, but eventually you’ll see the GUI installer come back. (Don’t worry, you only have to go through this process once.)
We’re getting there, just need a little bit more patience.
Eventually the virtual machine will reboot again, this time into macOS High Sierra. If that doesn’t happen, try ejecting the ISO from the Virtual Machine. When High Sierra does boot, you’ll need to go through choosing your country, setting up a user, and the rest of the initial setup process.
Eventually, you’ll make it to the Mac desktop. Yay!
You can now try out any Mac software, though some functions, like FaceTime and Messages, won’t work because Apple won’t recognize your computer as a real Mac. But a lot of the basic stuff should work. Have fun!
By default, your virtual machine will have a resolution of 1024×768, which is not a lot of room to work with. If you try to change the resolution from within macOS, however, you will see no option to do so. Instead, you need to enter a few commands.
Shut down your Virtual Machine by shutting down macOS: click the Apple in the menu bar, then click “Shut Down.” Next, close VirtualBox entirely (seriously, this step will not work if VirtualBox is still open!) and head back to Windows’ Command Prompt as an admin. You need to run the following two commands:
In the second command, you need to replace the N
with a number from one to five, depending on what resolution you want:
Start up VirtualBox, load up your virtual machine, and it should boot to your preferred resolution!
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From now on, you can open VirtualBox for any Mac-related testing you want to do. Again, you’ll see a lot of errors pop up during boot, but they’re fine; ignore them. Also, remember that audio won’t work, nor will things like FaceTime or iMessage, which require a real Mac. This isn’t going to be perfect, which is to be expected from an entirely unsupported setup. But it’s macOS, in a virtual machine, and that’s not bad! Be sure to check out our guide to VirtualBox’s advanced features to get the most out of your machine, too.
One more thing: a huge shout-out to Chad S. Samuels, without whom I could not have updated this guide for High Sierra. Thank you so much!